"My experience in shooting 'Scott of the Antarctic' proved highly valuable when it came to shooting many of the scenes staged in the snow and snow storms," said Cardiff. "I'd become familiar enough with various snow scenes to be able to recreate the effects I wanted. But sometimes I was just lucky with the location. When we shot on the banks of the Arno river, for instance, there was a slight fog which offered wonderful pictorial possibilities. But we also had to create snow and winter aspects for some of the scenes. Actually, a large proportion of the film was shot during the height of the Italian summer, when almost every Roman desserts the capital to escape the relentless heat. To photograph an important winter scene at this time, it became necessary to scatter powdered plaster over a square-mile location site to give it the appearance of frost."
"In August," Cardiff continued, "we couldn't get the Cine Cita stage space we wanted, as Metro-Goldwyn Mayer had booked it for its production of 'Ben Hur,' which had not yet even been started. So we were obliged to take space in a tiny studio across the road. It was so small that our one set came to within a foot of the walls on every side. Luckily, fire restrictions in Rome are less severe than in Britain."
"By this time we'd lit this set, the temperature was practically bursting the thermometer. And on top of this, the interiors we were shooting were supposed to be mid-winter scenes in which members of the cast had to wear fur coats and appear to shiver in the cold! The floor was literally soaked with perspiration before we began rehearsals."
In all the 'exterior' snow scenes which were actually shot in the studio, Cardiff used a panel of glass, sprayed white, plus a pale green filter before the lens in order to impart a slight mist effect to the scenes. One sequence in the picture, which has attracted much praise for its photographic excellence, is the action of the duel in the snow. Many expert photographers have unqualifiedly declared these scenes actual exteriors. The fact is however that they were shot on Stage 5 at Rome's Cine Citta studio. To achieve the very real effect of dusk on a wintry night, Cardiff used a glass before the camera with sky painted on the upper portion, as the wide-angle lens used in covering the great sweep of the set took in too much vertically.
Though this is a technique which Cardiff has used before, it was new to the Italian technicians, who were rather dubious about the outcome. For a sun effect in the same sequence, Cardiff employed an original trick of directing a lamp onto the sky area of the painted glass mounted before the camera lens. A combination of colored filters plus a fog filter gave Cardiff the effect he sought, and resulted in one of the most talked about scenes in the film.
I read, discuss, and discover new things about cinematography everyday. Most of it, I consider incredibly interesting. Everyday I will share one of those things, maybe more if I have time.
Showing posts with label exteriors. Show all posts
Showing posts with label exteriors. Show all posts
6.3.12
Jack Cardiff: Fake Snow
From the article, Jack Cardiff's VistaVision Venture by Derek Hill, American Cinematographer, December 1956
28.4.11
Wide Exterior Night Lighting in 1923
From American Cinematographer, Startling Electrical Comparisons in 'Hunchback' 1923 and 1939 by Earl Miller (February 1940)
No Inkies in 1923
In 1923, incandescent lights were not used for motion pictures. The street set was a few feet longer and wider than the one used in the 1939 production. There were only fifty-six 24-inch sun arcs in the entire industry in Hollywood.
We needed every one for our night shots, and Universal arranged to rent all but one. Every night for seven long weeks all the sets in other studios were stripped of 24-inch sun arcs. They were loaded on trucks and hauled to Universal. We used them until 5am, but had to return them to the proper studio and have them set and ready to burn by 8am.
Whenever possible, we left the lights on the trucks all night instead of building parallels. This accounts for the number of trucks showing in the panoramic picture accompanying this story.
Every light used in the 1923 production was an arc. Some of the 24 inch had automatic feed, but in addition to these there were more than 450 other arcs, all of which were hand fed. All lights had to be trimmed at least twice every night and some three times.
Yes, we actually shot every night, all night, for forty-nine straight nights. At one time (and it would be the time it rained the hardest) my crew and I worked five days and six nights straight, rigged all day and shot all night; never took our shoes off; cat-napped between shots.
Six Months' Work
Finally on June 3, 1923, the last reel was in the can, and in spite of all the work and worry everyone who worked on or in that picture will tell you that we had lots of fun making it.
Here are a few of the electrical statistics:
(8) portable generators
(2) 300kw stationary generators
(6) 150kw transformers
The peak load was approximately 37,500 amperes.
No Inkies in 1923
In 1923, incandescent lights were not used for motion pictures. The street set was a few feet longer and wider than the one used in the 1939 production. There were only fifty-six 24-inch sun arcs in the entire industry in Hollywood.
We needed every one for our night shots, and Universal arranged to rent all but one. Every night for seven long weeks all the sets in other studios were stripped of 24-inch sun arcs. They were loaded on trucks and hauled to Universal. We used them until 5am, but had to return them to the proper studio and have them set and ready to burn by 8am.
Whenever possible, we left the lights on the trucks all night instead of building parallels. This accounts for the number of trucks showing in the panoramic picture accompanying this story.
Every light used in the 1923 production was an arc. Some of the 24 inch had automatic feed, but in addition to these there were more than 450 other arcs, all of which were hand fed. All lights had to be trimmed at least twice every night and some three times.
Yes, we actually shot every night, all night, for forty-nine straight nights. At one time (and it would be the time it rained the hardest) my crew and I worked five days and six nights straight, rigged all day and shot all night; never took our shoes off; cat-napped between shots.
Six Months' Work
Finally on June 3, 1923, the last reel was in the can, and in spite of all the work and worry everyone who worked on or in that picture will tell you that we had lots of fun making it.
Here are a few of the electrical statistics:
(8) portable generators
(2) 300kw stationary generators
(6) 150kw transformers
The peak load was approximately 37,500 amperes.
15.7.09
John Toll: Jungles & Daylight Exteriors
From American Cinematographer, The War Within by Stephen Pizzello (February 1999)
"In those situations [jungle], scouting is everything. We would basically clear out a path to get the gear in, and then take the actors in another 100' and let them struggle. [Laughs.]
We did haul some lights into the jungle, but when we turned them on, they completely changed the character and nuances of the natural light. It was beautiful in there, but we were dealing with extremely low light levels. There were subtleties in the colors and gradations of the natural light that completely disappeared when we mixed in any artificial fill. There was plenty of contrast, though, because the sunlight that did filter in created great hot highlights. I decided to just expose into the shadows as much as possible and go for the natural falloff of the shadows to compensate for lack of detail. It worked out okay.
This became a general approach to lighting most of the exteriors. I started out using some amounts of fill, but I became less and less interested in controlling contrast; I would expose for the shadow detail that I wanted and then usually let highlights go. At times, we would use indirect light bounced from muslin or beadboard to lift faces, and maybe use black for negative, but when we were working in heavy contrast, I was quite a bit overexposed from what a more normal exposure would be in those situations. When it was sunny, it was extremely contrasty, but rather than trying to balance everything by adding fill, I just ignored the highlights.
I thought the film actually started looking much better when we lost the details in the highlights; it seemed more appropriate for the story. The more contrasty things got, the better, because it felt as if things were out of control — just as they were in the story.
There's a sequence that I like between Nick Nolte, who plays this mad colonel, and John Cusack, who's his adjutant. In the scene, which occurs about halfway through the battle, Nolte tells Cusack not to worry about the men and to focus on the charge up the hill. We were on top of a hill in an area with all of these burned-out tree trunks. It was extremely contrasty, but we really wanted to get into the faces and show the actors' expressions. We chose to shoot in a direction that would allow us to take advantage of the light. We put them in areas where they were in direct sunlight that was broken up by the trees, and we also added smoke to soften the sunlight. We wanted to show the environment, but we also chose angles that were good for close-ups and dialogue. We used some white fill and black negative to give the characters some shape and contrast, but choosing the right angles was the most important consideration...
...It's amazing to me how often I hear cinematographers say that they think shooting good-looking day exterior movies is all about sitting around and waiting for the right light to happen, and then just pointing your camera at it and shooting 'pretty pictures.' Doing good work in day exterior situations means that you must be able to make great images all day long, even when the light isn't ideal for pretty pictures. You must make choices that will allow you to take advantage of natural light in existing conditions. Even when the light is 'bad' it is possible to do good work by making wise choices.
The predominant day exterior lighting conditions on this film were either sunny high-contrast or soft contrast resulting from overcast conditions. Because we were shooting all day long and didn't have the luxury of waiting for ideal light, we had to decide how to make existing light work for the scenes we were schedule to do on a given day. It was impossible to entirely control all of the light in our shots because we were using wider-angle anamorphic lenses and constantly moving the camera. None of the traditional methods of light control, such as putting up silks, were possible, because of the terrain and the nature of the shots. Sometimes, if we were doing extended dialogue and didn't like the way the contrast was affecting the actors' faces, we would try to create an artificial 'overcast' look by staging scenes under trees or in the shadow of a hill. At other times, we would stay in the open and go with the existing high contrast, exposing the faces and letting the contrast go. There were also days when we had both overcast and high-contrast sun happening simultaneously because of low clouds moving quickly and causing severe light changes. We had some days when the light changes happened so quickly that we just shot through them. It could be blistering hot one moment, and completely dark the next — sometimes in the same shot. But that represented the reality of the situation, and we just went with it. We didn't fight the conditions; we just tried to make them part of the story. In fact, for one Akela shot of the soldiers climbing up the hills, we waited specifically for a light change to happen. The scene starts out in heavy cloud cover, but the sun comes out and reveals these guys sneaking through the grass. That particular light change worked well for us.
The point I'm trying to make is that good daytime exterior cinematography is not comprised solely of making 'pretty pictures' at magic hour; it's about being knowledgeable about your craft and being able to create interesting images in all of the various daylight conditions."
-John Toll, ASC
13.7.09
Jean Yves Escoffier: Pools of Light & Night Exteriors
From American Cinematographer, Card Sharks by Jean Oppenheimer (October 1998)
For night exteriors, he used a Lee 104 deep amber gel to suggest the warm sodium-vapor lights now being used in the Big Apple (the city formerly used mercury-vapor streetlamps, which weren't as warm). "The night stuff was beautiful," marvels New York-based gaffer Ramsey. "Some of the streets where we shot were very mundane, junky little lower East Side streets. But the way Jean Yves shot them, with the contrasts and pools of light, really brought them to life."
Night street scenes are Escoffier's favorite milieu. "I love to do the city by night," he says in a reverential tone. "It is like a painting." With a laugh, he adds, "I am a happy person by night."
The cinematographer sought to make the film's exterior night scenes more dramatic and expressionistic. "People who are addicted to playing cards are like night birds," he suggests. "They have strange minds. They are alone in the world. I didn't want them to appear in the normal light of the city by night, so I completely changed the light."
Escoffier created his dramatic nighttime exteriors partially through the use of Dino lights, which were aimed through custom-made cookies to create strong pools of light, so that people walking down the streets would travel in and out of the illuminated areas. The characters' faces were almost always highlighted with eyelights, which were either attached to the camera or held by a crew member walking beside the actor.
14.5.09
Emmanuel Lubezki: Artificial Sky
From American Cinematographer, Galloping Ghost by Stephen Pizzello (December 1999)
"One day we had a big meeting with everyone, and we talked about building everything at Leavesden Studios. When we went to England on the first scouting trip, they showed me the sets on the stages, and I thought they were joking-- all of the stage ceilings were really low, and the sets were less than 20' high. That created some big limitations, and as a result, I had to throw out my initial plans for the lighting. My first idea had been to employ huge sources, most of which would come from the back to create silhouettes, and to use very little fill light. However, the approach I eventually adopted worked out much better: I decided to create a huge toplight, which I had never done before. The stage ceilings were so low that we couldn't really hide lights in the greenbeds. Instead, we created a huge sense of sky for the exteriors shot in the stages. We installed over 500 space lights up in the ceiling, very close to each other, and then pumped smoke into the rafters to create a false sky and obscure the fixtures. That was, all of the light would seem to be coming from the sky, as it would in reality. Being low helped me because I was getting the stop I wanted, and it was easier to control the smoke."
- Emmanuel Lubezki, ASC, AMC
"One day we had a big meeting with everyone, and we talked about building everything at Leavesden Studios. When we went to England on the first scouting trip, they showed me the sets on the stages, and I thought they were joking-- all of the stage ceilings were really low, and the sets were less than 20' high. That created some big limitations, and as a result, I had to throw out my initial plans for the lighting. My first idea had been to employ huge sources, most of which would come from the back to create silhouettes, and to use very little fill light. However, the approach I eventually adopted worked out much better: I decided to create a huge toplight, which I had never done before. The stage ceilings were so low that we couldn't really hide lights in the greenbeds. Instead, we created a huge sense of sky for the exteriors shot in the stages. We installed over 500 space lights up in the ceiling, very close to each other, and then pumped smoke into the rafters to create a false sky and obscure the fixtures. That was, all of the light would seem to be coming from the sky, as it would in reality. Being low helped me because I was getting the stop I wanted, and it was easier to control the smoke."
- Emmanuel Lubezki, ASC, AMC
Emmanuel Lubezki: Large Soft Boxes
From American Cinematographer, Galloping Ghost by Stephen Pizzello (December 1999)
The crew's grim slog was brightened a bit by Lubezki's lighting setup, which comprised three giant softboxes suspended from a trio of 250-ton construction cranes. The roof of each unit contained six 24-light (Par 64) Dinos aimed downward, while three of the sides contained a trio of 9-light Maxi-Brutes angled at 45 degrees. According to gaffer John Higgins,
"Our initial idea for that set was to have a tank-track road ringing the set, and we did tests with various lighting rigs at positions we could access from the tracks. That idea proved to be impractical for many reasons. Instead, we decided to suspend these very large soft sources on rotating bases that could be positioned at any point above the set and still be kept hidden. The art department built a fantastic scale model of the set, and when we studied it we though there might be three points where we could position our supports. We eventually located a company that had three 250-ton telescoping cranes with a reach of 67 meters [approximately 220 feet]. The art department then made working scale models of these cranes, which we positioned around the model. This test confirmed that the only way to reach all points on the set was to use three cranes. We then did a test with a half-size version of our rig, which confirmed that our theory would work."
- John Higgins, gaffer for Lubezki on Sleepy Hollow
Each of the completed soft-boxes consisted of a 20' x 20' base with sides 12' high built from scaffolding. The units had to be strong enough to be suspended safely with the lights attached, and the set''s roads also had to be reinforced to support the cranes' weight. Each box could provide 250k of light, and full gridcloth was affixed to the bottom and sides of each. Long black ropes were attached to the corners of the rigs so the crew could control their rotation from the ground. The last lamp mounted on the base of each rig was a 70k Lighting Strikes unit, and the power to the rigs was provided by twin 200k generators. The rest of the power for the set was provided by three other generators, while a complete cabling system was wired and then buried during construction of the set. The system enabled the lighting crew to deliver large amounts of power to any part of the set very quickly.
..."In a funny way, using the cranes was cheaper than lighting the sets any other way. When you rig immense softlights up on cranes, you can move them really quickly. Each rig has only one light, and you can put it anywhere you want, which allowed us to do more setups a day. We also didn't have to use much supplemental lighting at all-- almost none, in fact. Sometimes from the ground we'd add a bit of fill light just to see the actors' eyes and so forth. Any extra lights we used on the ground were always aimed through diffusion grids. Bu the time the light reached the subjects it was simply a 20' by 20' gird of light, so it almost didn't matter whether we were using 10ks or Mini-Brutes. A cinematography purist might not agree with that statement, but once you put the light through so many layers, it really doesn't matter what kind of fixture you're using. I would basically tell the crew which stop I wanted, and John Higgins would pick a light and use it to fill a 20' by 20' frame."
- Emmanuel Lubezki, ASC, AMC
The crew's grim slog was brightened a bit by Lubezki's lighting setup, which comprised three giant softboxes suspended from a trio of 250-ton construction cranes. The roof of each unit contained six 24-light (Par 64) Dinos aimed downward, while three of the sides contained a trio of 9-light Maxi-Brutes angled at 45 degrees. According to gaffer John Higgins,
"Our initial idea for that set was to have a tank-track road ringing the set, and we did tests with various lighting rigs at positions we could access from the tracks. That idea proved to be impractical for many reasons. Instead, we decided to suspend these very large soft sources on rotating bases that could be positioned at any point above the set and still be kept hidden. The art department built a fantastic scale model of the set, and when we studied it we though there might be three points where we could position our supports. We eventually located a company that had three 250-ton telescoping cranes with a reach of 67 meters [approximately 220 feet]. The art department then made working scale models of these cranes, which we positioned around the model. This test confirmed that the only way to reach all points on the set was to use three cranes. We then did a test with a half-size version of our rig, which confirmed that our theory would work."
- John Higgins, gaffer for Lubezki on Sleepy Hollow
Each of the completed soft-boxes consisted of a 20' x 20' base with sides 12' high built from scaffolding. The units had to be strong enough to be suspended safely with the lights attached, and the set''s roads also had to be reinforced to support the cranes' weight. Each box could provide 250k of light, and full gridcloth was affixed to the bottom and sides of each. Long black ropes were attached to the corners of the rigs so the crew could control their rotation from the ground. The last lamp mounted on the base of each rig was a 70k Lighting Strikes unit, and the power to the rigs was provided by twin 200k generators. The rest of the power for the set was provided by three other generators, while a complete cabling system was wired and then buried during construction of the set. The system enabled the lighting crew to deliver large amounts of power to any part of the set very quickly.
..."In a funny way, using the cranes was cheaper than lighting the sets any other way. When you rig immense softlights up on cranes, you can move them really quickly. Each rig has only one light, and you can put it anywhere you want, which allowed us to do more setups a day. We also didn't have to use much supplemental lighting at all-- almost none, in fact. Sometimes from the ground we'd add a bit of fill light just to see the actors' eyes and so forth. Any extra lights we used on the ground were always aimed through diffusion grids. Bu the time the light reached the subjects it was simply a 20' by 20' gird of light, so it almost didn't matter whether we were using 10ks or Mini-Brutes. A cinematography purist might not agree with that statement, but once you put the light through so many layers, it really doesn't matter what kind of fixture you're using. I would basically tell the crew which stop I wanted, and John Higgins would pick a light and use it to fill a 20' by 20' frame."
- Emmanuel Lubezki, ASC, AMC
13.5.09
Peter Menzies Jr: Depth in Night Exteriors
From American Cinematographer, A Few Bad Men by Jay Holben (July 1999)
"We had to find a way to show depth of the location without the classic 'moonlight' source. We had guys put out cable stretching several hundred yards away form the main set in all directions, and we'd put lamps out there-- nine lights, Dinos and single Mole Pars. Then we would put different gels on them, depending on where they fell into frame and the type of color contrast Peter wanted to see. Finally we would add a lyaer of smoke between the lamps and the set-- that worked very well and created amazing depth."
-Rafael Sanchez, Gaffer for Menzies on The General's Daughter
"Peter is a master at using smoke. Because we were doing a lot of night shooting in wide-open spaces, the light obviously only travels so far. Beyond that it all just goes to black, which can make for a very boring frame, but Peter had this incredible system of smoke machines and miles of plastic pipes running all around with little tine holes. He would send smoke down them, and it would slowly leak out over a wide area, creating a very moody mist off in the distance."
- Simon West, Director of The General's Daughter
"I was using the fog as separation to reduce contrast in the background, and to add depth. With stray sources placed way off in the distance, once the smoke got between them and the camera, it created this whole atmosphere that extended the set far beyond the foreground. The special effects team had these smoke tubes made out of visqueen [a material similar to that used for garbage bags]. They were about a foot in diameter, and the crew would lay them all over the place. They'd put one little smoker between every couple of hundred yards, so we could run a mile of smoke very easily. If we wanted more smoke, we could just cut more holes in the tubes, and if we wanted less smoke, we could just patch them up. It was great for the rough terrain as well; because the tubes were flexible, we could just run them out anywhere. We used them a lot around the water edges in Savannah and around Brenner's houseboat, which is the setting for a major gun battle at the beginning of the film."
- Peter Menzies Jr, ASC
"We had to find a way to show depth of the location without the classic 'moonlight' source. We had guys put out cable stretching several hundred yards away form the main set in all directions, and we'd put lamps out there-- nine lights, Dinos and single Mole Pars. Then we would put different gels on them, depending on where they fell into frame and the type of color contrast Peter wanted to see. Finally we would add a lyaer of smoke between the lamps and the set-- that worked very well and created amazing depth."
-Rafael Sanchez, Gaffer for Menzies on The General's Daughter
"Peter is a master at using smoke. Because we were doing a lot of night shooting in wide-open spaces, the light obviously only travels so far. Beyond that it all just goes to black, which can make for a very boring frame, but Peter had this incredible system of smoke machines and miles of plastic pipes running all around with little tine holes. He would send smoke down them, and it would slowly leak out over a wide area, creating a very moody mist off in the distance."
- Simon West, Director of The General's Daughter
"I was using the fog as separation to reduce contrast in the background, and to add depth. With stray sources placed way off in the distance, once the smoke got between them and the camera, it created this whole atmosphere that extended the set far beyond the foreground. The special effects team had these smoke tubes made out of visqueen [a material similar to that used for garbage bags]. They were about a foot in diameter, and the crew would lay them all over the place. They'd put one little smoker between every couple of hundred yards, so we could run a mile of smoke very easily. If we wanted more smoke, we could just cut more holes in the tubes, and if we wanted less smoke, we could just patch them up. It was great for the rough terrain as well; because the tubes were flexible, we could just run them out anywhere. We used them a lot around the water edges in Savannah and around Brenner's houseboat, which is the setting for a major gun battle at the beginning of the film."
- Peter Menzies Jr, ASC
Peter Menzies Jr: Night Exteriors Approach
From American Cinematographer, A Few Bad Men by Jay Holben (July 1999)
Due to the film's considerable number of night scenes, a major consideration was how to define the night look. Both Menzies and West chose to forsake "Blue" moonlight for a more practical approach.
"I wanted every scene to have that oppressive feeling of muggy Southern heat and I thought that any cool colored light would kill the feeling. As a result, we worked in warm tones. We chose locations that we would paint in darker colors like reds, ambers and oranges, and we stuck to Peter's main night plan, in which moonlight never came down from above. All of the night sequences were lit as if the illumination being generated purely by practical sources on the ground."
- Simon West
"In keeping with Simon's warm look, I went with a more sodium-vapor approach for all of the night sequences. We colored all of our lights to have that yellowish sodium feel. [Given the widescreen frame] a lot of the lights on the ground were going to end up in the frame. Obviously, they were not real streetlights, but film lights placed off in the distance and simply gelled to look sodium colored. Simon loved that idea, and once we defocused them, they became these wonderful background elements that resembled anything-- other buildings, streetlights. They created fantastic visual expanse without us having to light everything with Condors. Speed was the other added benefit. By keeping everything out of the air, and not minding that lamps were in the shot, we were able to move much more quickly and cover a lot more ground in a short period of time."
- Peter Menzies Jr, ASC
Due to the film's considerable number of night scenes, a major consideration was how to define the night look. Both Menzies and West chose to forsake "Blue" moonlight for a more practical approach.
"I wanted every scene to have that oppressive feeling of muggy Southern heat and I thought that any cool colored light would kill the feeling. As a result, we worked in warm tones. We chose locations that we would paint in darker colors like reds, ambers and oranges, and we stuck to Peter's main night plan, in which moonlight never came down from above. All of the night sequences were lit as if the illumination being generated purely by practical sources on the ground."
- Simon West
"In keeping with Simon's warm look, I went with a more sodium-vapor approach for all of the night sequences. We colored all of our lights to have that yellowish sodium feel. [Given the widescreen frame] a lot of the lights on the ground were going to end up in the frame. Obviously, they were not real streetlights, but film lights placed off in the distance and simply gelled to look sodium colored. Simon loved that idea, and once we defocused them, they became these wonderful background elements that resembled anything-- other buildings, streetlights. They created fantastic visual expanse without us having to light everything with Condors. Speed was the other added benefit. By keeping everything out of the air, and not minding that lamps were in the shot, we were able to move much more quickly and cover a lot more ground in a short period of time."
- Peter Menzies Jr, ASC
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)